If the world ends tonight...

...I will be okay.

In the past 48 hours, I have snuggled my sweet niece and kissed the belly which miraculously still hosts my unborn nephew in Nevada.  I ate delicious pizza for breakfast and I enjoyed my latest (ridiculous) guilty pleasure - seat warmers  - while en route to one of my very favorite places: the airport.

I endured an exciting and turbulent flight back to Oregon, and as the plane finally broke through the clouds, I became that passenger, unable to contain my joy as I obnoxiously pointed out the window and announced how "green" and "wonderful" everything is to the stranger next to me (who, btw, had absolutely zero concept of personal space).

I reunited with my sweet twins after our longest separation since the very day they were born, and marveled at their fantastic ability to articulate themselves in complete, imaginative, intelligible sentences (Could someone please explain to me when exactly it was that they got so BIG?! And who told them it was okay to do it while I wasn't around?)

best friends

my sweet Abbey girl

I discovered my diploma waiting for me, along with a sweet surprise from a friend in the VA Department at PSU: he saved me a piece of fall since he knew I "missed it" in Nevada.  Truth be told, I often forget I even have a master's degree...

I bundled up in an embarrassing number of mis-matched layers (the results of essentially living out of a suitcase for months on end), and reveled in some scrumptious girl-talk (not to mention thai food at my favorite hole-in-the-wall Portland secret) with my gorgeous friend Katie, which we followed up with our second-annual stroll down Peacock Lane.

(^) a summary of my vagabond life, since June. 

This morning, I curled up on a familiar couch and sipped hot coffee while toddlers in darling Christmas jammies scurried all around me, offering assorted "treats" made up of whatever hodgepodge toys they could find around the living room.  Then before I knew it, they were gone in a flurry of hugs and kisses, and I basked in what has quickly become the most beautiful simple pleasures to me: silence.

I spent a leisurely morning reflecting on the whirlwind of hellos and goodbyes my quick trip to Oregon will contain.

And tonight, two of my very best friends are braving Friday rush-hour traffic and making their way up North to take me out for a night of nostalgia, wonder, and overpriced hot chocolate: Zoo Lights.

So no, I don't have a handsome husband or sweet baby of my own to cuddle in our cozy, Pinterest-inspired home.

Heck, I don't even have a mediocre looking boyfriend or a permanent address.

But what I do have is all kinds of wonderful, and I refuse to take even a moment of it for granted.

Cheers to the beginning, the end, or perhaps just a marvelous Christmas season.

P.S. If the world doesn't end tonight, wanna get together while I'm in town?